Idealist
by cerebel
Summary: Gaeta, he was an idealist, and somewhere inside he still desperately wants to be one. GaetaTyrol, postep for Collaborators.
1. Chapter 1

Panic.

It's all I can do when the bag is over my face, something shoved in my mouth; me pulled off my feet and dragged somewhere, somewhere, I don't know where can't yell can't fight _oh gods someone get this off me!_

They're going to kill me, I know they're going to kill me—

Okay, Gaeta. Calm down. Calm. Breathe…

—_can't breathe_—

Don't panic…

—_PANIC!!_—

…and bright light shines in my eyes. I flinch, before I realize it's just shipboard lights and I'm…where? Still on Galactica…

Oh, gods…

And they all stare at me. Like I'm some kind of beast, some kind of monster.

Calm. Breathe.

My throat chokes. They're going to kill me. I'm going to die. Here and now, this is it, punishment for the crimes I didn't commit, but that I should have stopped.

"Felix Gaeta," she says. "You've been tried and found guilty of crimes against humanity by a circle of your peers, as duly authorized by the President of the Colonies."

President of the Colonies? No…

"If you have any words to offer in your defense," she continues, "now is the time."

I look around, at all of them, all of them gathered there. I should have known, should have seen this coming. Colonel Tigh, Kara Thrace, some I didn't know. And even Chief Tyrol.

Anger floods me, so strong it nearly chokes off my air, accompanied with guilt. Why did I have to find the election fix? Why didn't I just…just _ignore _the mistake in the ballots—

—_"You're an idealist," said Baltar. "There's no shame in that._—

_That_ _son of a bitch_.

"Come on, Felix," I hear Tyrol say. "Talk. We'll listen."

I shake my head. No.

"Yeah, that's right," one of them says, vicious, cruel. "We'll listen to you tell us how hiding behind Baltar's skirt was actually your way of helping the insurgency."

"Say something!" the last one shouts at me.

I choke. "What's the point?" I look up, and they're blurry—something in my eyes. "I already tried to explain it." I set my jaw. There are lines, there are lines I've crossed and lines I'm never, ever going to cross. "I'm not going to beg."

Tigh scoffs. "Too bad you didn't grow that spine four months ago."

And the anger drains out of me, like that. Too bad. Maybe it wasn't me after all, maybe there was no dog bowl, maybe I just hallucinated, imagined it out of the haze of unreality that surrounded everything that happened down on that damned planet. My gaze drops. It doesn't change anything. I'll die now, but I won't beg them.

"Beg," I hear. It's Thrace. "Beg!" she cries, and I still don't look up. "_Beg!_" She kicks me, and I fall to the side. Hard to keep balance with my hands taped behind my back.

"Thrace!" Tigh calls.

"No! Beg!" she commands, but I don't move. The others are retreating out of the launch tube. Oh gods, oh gods… "Come on, Felix," she snarls at me, "tell them how you were actually working for the Resistance," and a flare of hope sparks inside me. "_Come on!_ Tell them all about the important information that you were giving up, tell them about the messages, about the dog bowl, and everything else!"

"What?" Tyrol asks.

No, no, please don't force it, don't do this, just let me _die_…

"What did she say?" He's in my space, close to me, way too close. "What did she just say?" he questions, relentlessly. "Back up. What did you say to her?" He takes me by the shoulders. "Tell me, _what did you say to her_?"

I can't do this— "There was a yellow dog bowl," I stammer out. "It was a-a-a signal, it meant there was a message in the garbage dump, turn it over, it was a signal." The words spilled out of me now, there was no way to control them. "It meant there was a message in the garbage dump," I repeated.

No way Tyrol could fake the shock on his face. "Oh. Oh, that was _you_. Oh, my gods…" And suddenly the pressure is gone around my wrists. I rub them; my hands tingle.

"What are you doing?" Tigh growls.

"Chief." Kara's voice is dangerous.

"There was a yellow dog bowl, I used it." Tyrol stands up to Tigh, as I just try to get to my feet steadily. "You were wondering who the source was, Colonel, there's no other way he could have known."

I close my eyes, waiting for the gods to take away my fortune.

"He's the only other one that would know about it. He's the reason we know about the death lists, he's the reason I saved Cally, he's the reason we're on this ship."

I'm the reason we're on this ship?

The codes, oh—

"He's the one who gave us the inside information," Tyrol finished. "There's our source, Colonel."

They're all looking at me. Disgust, but not at what I've done—what they might have done. "I did what I could," I say, not sure of my words anymore. "I don't know what else I could have done."

And then I'm past them and out the door.

----

It's not long before I find an abandoned hallway. I find a box, and I collapse behind it. I want to sob, I want to shriek, I want to pound the memories of New Caprica into the dust, but I can't. All I can do is look forward, remember how much I believed in the dream of that planet, how much I believed in _Baltar_.

Remember how he touched me, used me like he used all the other whores he bought and sold. Slime, slime, slime, _just like me_.

I don't know how much time passes as I sit there.

"Gaeta," and it was Tyrol, silhouetted against the limited lights illuminating this hallway. "Felix?" he asks, more personal this time.

"Go away," I bite out.

"Felix," he says again, coming closer, squatting down in front of me.

I look up at him, and I just want…I want… "You didn't do everything right either," I say.

"I know," he admits. "None of us did."

I lean forward and kiss him. I know immediately that I shouldn't have, but I'm not in my right mind, I'm lacking in judgment.

I don't expect him to lean back in and steal my breath away from my mouth, and touch his tongue to mine. He pulls back, and somehow he's sitting next to me now. "This is just rescuer syndrome," he warns me, "because I saved your life," and I can't tell whether he's joking or not.

"You don't think," I gasp out, "that it's counteracted by you being the one who was going to kill me in the first place?"

Galen stills. "I'm so sorry," he says.

"I wanted to die," I whisper. He looks at me with anguish in his eyes. "I want this world to be over; I want it to be like it was before."

"We all do," he tells me.

I kiss him again, desperately, and he reflects it like perfect mirror. I feel each sensation separately, like it's plugged into a different part of my mind; his fingers on the back of my neck; his tongue slipping past mine; his other hand slipping up under my shirt; the dizziness. I can't tell which way is up anymore, or if there even is one, in the blackness of space.

In the blackness of space, where humanity lives.

"Show me," I beg, "show me there's something other than hate." He pulls me roughly into his arms, and I whisper, "please," one last word.

And I want him, I want that connection so badly, that I don't let go.


	2. Chapter 2

"That's five to none in favor of guilty," says Seelix. "It's gotta be unanimous. Chief, you're the last to vote."

And it's down to me. They're all looking at me, expectation in their eyes, something entirely unreadable in Kara's. I take a breath, really not sure what I'm going to say—

The door clangs open.

"Get outta here, Sam," Tigh says.

A pang of guilt constricts my chest. I wish I'd left when Sam did.

"I'd like to talk to my wife," Anders says, and Tigh lets him and Kara leave.

And Tigh turns on me, like a vulture.

"He doesn't want to say he's guilty because Gaeta is such a good guy, right, Chief? Everyone likes Gaeta, so let's let him off the hook, let's just look the other way on this one." His words have a dark bite to them, and they're hitting a little closer than I'd like.

I didn't like Gaeta when we first met; I didn't really notice him, actually. Eventually, though, he starts to wear on you. Familiar – comfortable. Always up on the bridge, at a console, always providing some function completely essential to the running of the ship. Eventually, you get to like him. And then it gets to where you can't imagine the ship going without him, though I guess it did, for as long as Baltar was president.

Gaeta was the one who found the rigged ballots in the election. He blew the whistle on the whole thing. Can honor like that really just disappear?

"…and she died for it," continues Tigh. "Because that's the price of collaborating with the enemy." He pauses. "And I liked her a lot more than I liked Gaeta."

Maybe he's right. Maybe I'm letting my feelings for Gaeta cloud my judgment.

"Baltar signed death warrants for organized murder squads," insists Seelix, intense. "He collaborated with the enemy from day one!"

"Baltar, not Gaeta," but I know it's weak.

"It's the same godsdamn thing," says Tigh.

"He's right," says Seelix, echoing my thoughts. "A lot of people died because of them, Chief."

Suddenly, the words are too much. It seems incomprehensible how anyone could work for Baltar and not be covered in blood; it seems everyone is guilty. "Fine. Guilty," I say.

----

But when I see him, hands taped behind his back, something inside me dies.

Seelix pulls the bag off his head, someone grabs the gag and yanks it out of his mouth, Gaeta coughing, trying to breathe.

"Take him," Connor says, "Turn around. On your knees. On your knees!"

And he is. On his knees. My stomach twists; I think I must have imagined this very differently.

"Felix Gaeta," Seelix begins, "you've been tried and found guilty of crimes against humanity by a circle of your peers, as duly authorized by the President of the Colonies. If you have any words to offer in your own defense, now is the time."

I see his reaction to President of the Colonies. He doesn't believe us; he thinks it's a hit squad. I know he does.

—It doesn't matter what he thinks. He's a criminal.

Criminals still have rights. "Come on, Felix," I say, "talk. We'll listen."

He shakes his head. Connor chimes in: "Yeah, that's right," he sneers. "We'll listen to you tell us how hiding behind Baltar's skirts was actually your way of helping the insurgency."

"Say something!" Jean shouts at him.

At first I don't hear him, his voice is so low. "What's the point?" Gaeta asks, his voice breaking. "I already tried to explain it." His chin juts a little. "I'm not going to beg."

Disgust floods me, but I'm not sure who I'm disgusted about.

Dimly, I hear Tigh say, "too bad you didn't grow that spine four months ago."

Too bad indeed. I remember Gaeta, when I asked him about Cally. I remember him promising me he'd do everything he could; and he did nothing at all.

I begin to retreat outside the launch tube. I can't watch this. I just don't know—is it really less cruel to treat people this way? Is this really the right thing to do?

"Beg!" I hear Kara shout, again and again—she's angry. Angry at Gaeta, angry at Baltar, angry at the Cylons.

—_"It's the same godsdamn thing," says Tigh_—

"No! Beg!" Kara almost sounds like she's pleading. Who has the power here? Is it us, with our hands poised over the airlock release, or is it Gaeta, on his knees, helpless, staring his death in the face and doing it like a man?

"Come on, Felix," Kara snarls. "Tell them how you were actually working for the Resistance!"

There's a dangerous darkness underlying her voice, and I wonder. I wonder why it is that, in a jury of their peers, out of everyone who was down on that planet, Zerrick picked the insurgency. He picked those who watched their comrades, lovers, friends die around them; he picked those with self-righteous anger so hot it would consume them.

—_"And people like you and me," I tell Jammer, "will be there, tying the knots tight."—_

"Come on!" Kara cries. "Tell them about all the important information that you were giving up, tell them about the messages, about the dog bowl—"

It's like my whole body touches a live wire. I jerk around, in shock. No, no, no way!

Kara's still speaking, but I ignore her, I brush past her, brush past all of them until I'm in front of Gaeta's tearstained eyes. "What? What did she say?" I ask frantically. There's something, some spark in his eyes, and I grab his shoulders, before it's lost forever. "Back up," I plead. "What did she just say? What did you say to her?" He still doesn't answer. "Tell me! What did you say to her?"

"There was a yellow dog bowl," he stammers, "it was a-a-a signal, it meant there was a message in the garbage dump, turn it over—…"

He's babbling, but finally, everything is starting to make sense.

"It was—it was a signal, it meant there was a message in the garbage dump—…" his voice breaks.

"Oh," I say through numb lips, "that was you. Oh my g—…" And I stop, because it's so inadequate. It's so painfully inadequate.

The knife makes a _schnick_ as it cuts the zip tie holding his wrists together. I look away from Gaeta's shocked eyes, to Tigh's indignant, "What are you doing?"

"Chief," and there's danger in Kara's eyes.

"There _was _a yellow dog bowl," I tell him for the first time. "I used it." I gesture to Gaeta. "You were wondering who the source was. Colonel, there's no other way he could have known. He was the only other one that would know about it." I marvel at what might have happened here. "He's the reason we know about the death lists," I say, "he's the reason I saved Cally." And more—the frequencies. "He's the reason we're on this ship." I look Tigh straight in the eyes. "There's our source, Colonel."

All attention is on Gaeta. "I did what I could," he mumbles, and my heart breaks. "I don't know what else I could have done."

The clang of the door slamming shut after him echoes like a nuclear blast in the sudden absolute silence.

We're, all of us, broken.

We're broken, and this has gone too far.

----

It doesn't take me long to find him, crouched behind a box. "Gaeta," I say gently, moving closer. I don't get a response. "Felix?" I ask.

"Go away." His eyes stare emptily at the wall across from him. I break his gaze, crouch down in front of him.

"Felix," I say again.

His eyes meet mine, red and open all the way down to the bottom. It's like I can read, in one instant, everything that he is.

"You didn't do everything right either," he tells me.

I want to apologize for hours – No. For sure, we didn't. Driven by desperation and by hatred, we didn't do everything right. That, in there, it was wrong, and I'm sorry.

Instead, "I know," I admit. "None of us did."

It's nothing close to the apology he deserves, and I'm lacking for something to fill the air when he pulls me in and presses his lips to mine.

Everything I wanted since I saw him kneeling on the floor in there, and it's _perfect_ like it's meant to be, like the gods are looking down on us with kind eyes. I delve into his mouth, and he just opens up, so pliant and beautiful—

—and I pull back. No way; the gods are going to come down here and drag us apart. "This is just rescuer syndrome," I tell him, "because I saved your life." I don't know why I say it.

"You don't think," he gasps against my neck, "that it's counteracted by you being the one who was going to kill me in the first place?"

It's like cold lubricant is poured into my bones. "I'm so sorry." And that's closer, but it's still not enough.

"I wanted to die," he whispers. I turn, looking at him, and I see the emptiness there, where there used to be something. Like that spark I saw, in the launch tube. "I want this world to be over," he says with desperation, "I want it to be like it was before."

I can't bear it any longer, and I'm leaning in and kissing him. Maybe I can't see the spark in his eyes, but I can feel it in the way he twists against me, the way he lets my tongue in his mouth and groans unconsciously in the back of his throat.

I slide a hand up his shirt, and he flinches. Not a flinch from fear or from disgust or from hatred, but it's like he's being overwhelmed and surrounded by more than he's felt in years.

He wants me; he _needs _me, and I've never been so hard in my life.

"Show me," he pleads, "show me there's something other than hate." I draw him into my arms, his head buried in the crook of my neck. "Please," he whispers. There's something in his tone that offers more than a connection. More than just comfort. I get it – this is redemption, this is forgiveness for the sins he and I have both committed. He doesn't need an apology. He needs _this_.

As I sit here, cradling him in my arms, I know that not even the gods could make me let him go now.


End file.
